Memorial grows outside of Jessie Davis' house

Monday

Jun 25, 2007 at 12:01 AMJun 25, 2007 at 3:52 PM

Neighbors weep in Ohio suburb where pregnant woman lived before she was killed.

Joseph Gartrell

BY JOSEPH GARTRELL
REPOSITORY STAFF WRITER
LAKE TWP. Hours after the Summit County coroner confirmed that it was the
remains of Jessie Marie Davis that were recovered Saturday from the Cuyahoga
Valley National Park, a steady stream of traffic flowed by Davis’ duplex at
8686 Essex St. NW, where the black-topped streets are barely wide enough for
cars to pass.

Traffic aside, Davis’ suburban neighborhood was quiet Sunday, most of the
neighbors indoors. Inside her fenced-in patio in the back stood a toddler’s
basketball hoop. Visible from her front yard, a water tower looms in the
distance. A patch of freshly turned soil near that tower was the focal point
of the Davis tragedy last Thursday. That fresh soil, investigators
determined later that night, was not a grave, but marijuana growth.

Many passers-by pointed and took photos of her porch, where a makeshift
memorial of flowers, teddy bears and cards was growing by the hour. For many
in the community, the discovery of Davis’ body and the arrest of Bobby Cutts
marked the end of one chapter of a story that has consumed the area, and
much of the country, since June 15.

“My eyes have been glued to this since it started,” said Lisa Zachocki, who
lives in Davis’ neighborhood. “(My sister and I) have shed tears, and I
don’t personally even know this woman.”

Zachocki, 36, and her twin sister, Laura Rhodes, walked down the street from
Zachocki’s house to leave flowers on Davis’ porch.

SIMILAR SCENE

It was a similar scene in the Hampton Hills Metro Park, part of the Cuyahoga
Valley National Park, that straddles the border of Akron and Cuyahoga Falls
in Summit County.

Park rangers stood guard along a dirt road that leads to trails near a sight
known as Top O’ the World because of its high elevation. Rangers allowed
people to leave flowers under a large maple tree, but made certain they
stayed away from the area where Davis’ body was discovered.

Doug Shepard, chief of rangers, called it typical Sunday traffic for the
park. But no one parked in the small lot to set off on a hike along one of
the park’s trails.

One woman told rangers she came to pay her respects. A man stepped from his
truck carrying a bouquet of yellow flowers. When a television crew
approached, he asked them not to film. “No, don’t do me. Don’t do me.”
Shepard said the FBI designated the area for those who wanted to leave
memorials.

Outside Davis’ duplex, Suzanne Obrycki, 52 of Greentown, and her son and
daughter parked at around 6 p.m. beside the driveway on Lee Street NW. They
got out and left flowers with the memorial.

“It’s weird that it was right in our area, rather than somewhere else you
hear about in the news,” Michael Obrycki, 15, said.

His mother agreed: “You see stuff like this all the time, but you don’t
expect it to happen right here in little ol’ North Canton. “The flowers are
going to die eventually, but hopefully the family will see the outpouring of
sympathy, just another indication that we care.”

SIGNS OF CARING

“Jessie” was written on a card propped against Davis’ front door. One of the
bouquets was for “Chloe,” the name Jessie had selected for her unborn child.

When the skies began to darken shortly after the Obryckies left, Zachocki
and Rhodes returned to move the items from the memorial closer to the front
door so they wouldn’t get wet in the event of a storm.

Rhodes held her 9-month-old son and fought back tears while her sister
neatly arranged the bouquets and teddy bears along the back wall of Davis’
porch.

Zachocki has lived in the neighborhood for one year and doesn’t recall ever
seeing Davis, although she says her son used to see Davis and her 2-year-old
son, Blake, playing in the front yard.

A married couple from Massillon, Nick Sowards and his pregnant wife Maritza,
arrived and began helping Zachocki rearrange the items.

Maritza Sowards looked at the memorial and reflected on the tragedy. “It’s
really sad when people just can’t cope with life and they go to these
extreme measures and take a life, especially of an unborn child. I just
don’t understand ... It’s mind boggling.”

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